By Tim Kane Special to the Times Union

Published 12:55 am, Sunday, November 21, 2010

Mixed-media artist, Richard Garrison, with some of his artwork, in his studio in his Delmar, NY home on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010. (Luanne M. Ferris / Times Union)

Mixed-media artist, Richard Garrison, with some of his artwork, in...

Mixed-media artist, Richard Garrison, with some of his artwork, in his studio in his Delmar, NY home on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010. (Luanne M. Ferris / Times Union)

Mixed-media artist, Richard Garrison, with some of his artwork, in...

Mixed-media artist, Richard Garrison, with some of his artwork, in his studio in his Delmar, NY home on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010. (Luanne M. Ferris / Times Union)

Mixed-media artist, Richard Garrison, with some of his artwork, in...

some of the materials used by mixed media artist, Richard Garrison, for his artwork, in his studio in his Delmar, NY home on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010. At this point in his career he is using a formula based on the colors in sale flyers, applying it to an Excel computer program and calculating color ratios from the ads as a basis for the color placement and quanity in his recent work. Garrison is showing work at "The High Line", in Manhattan, in a show called "The Other End of the Line", that runs thru Nov. 21st. In a few weeks the painter and collage artist who has mathematical calculations as the backbone of some of his pieces, will show in Philadelphia. (Luanne M. Ferris / Times Union)

some of the materials used by mixed media artist, Richard Garrison,...

Some of the materials used by mixed media artist, Richard Garrison. (Luanne M. Ferris / Times Union)

Some of the materials used by mixed media artist, Richard Garrison....

Some of the recent work by mixed media artist, Richard Garrison, for his artwork, in his studio in his Delmar, NY home on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010.. (Luanne M. Ferris / Times Union)

Some of the recent work by mixed media artist, Richard Garrison,...

Mixed-media artist, Richard Garrison, with some of his artwork, in his studio in his Delmar, NY home on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010. (Luanne M. Ferris / Times Union)

Mixed-media artist, Richard Garrison, with some of his artwork, in...

Some of the recent work by mixed media artist, Richard Garrison, for his artwork, in his studio in his Delmar, NY home on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010.. (Luanne M. Ferris / Times Union)

With rigid and systematic geometric forms, Richard Garrison's collages meld into their surroundings in an obliging way. If they were people at a cocktail party, they would prefer to stay in the background.

But behind their conformity lies a strident, if soft-spoken, commentary on our lives. Their precise squares, rectangles and circles, with splashes of rich color, speak of the calculations behind suburbia -- its malls, big-box retailers, endless parking lots, aisles and chain restaurants.

His most recent watercolor and gauche designs are newly added circles coupled with the customary boxes of reds, yellows, blues and oranges that radiate as if fragmented horn-of-plenty logos from Target, Wal-Mart and CVS, among others.

For years -- ever since his encounter with a Martha Stewart's "Everyday Colors" paint display at a Buffalo Kmart in 1998 -- Garrison has taken elements of mass merchandising and distilled them into vivid abstract art, but his latest efforts mimic with tinges of satire to the fullest effect yet.

Advertising fliers, painted light posts and grid patterns in parking lots, and the cacophony of drive-thru signs have all been dissected into works that subtly play on your mind, much like the original sources that break capitalism down into a visual science to do one thing: get you to buy something.

A sampling of his "circular" series -- by far the most attention-grabbing with their spiraling effect -- was included in the recent "The Other End of the Line" exhibit in New York City curated by the Tang's Ian Berry. A collection of work from some of upstate's most noteworthy artists, the exhibit places Garrison among those from the region who are gaining a wider following.

Q: Your art is so much about process and concept. Could you explain how you go about it for the "circular" group?

A: Normally, I had taken things from retailers, such as parking lots and drive-thrus and measured and color-charted them into different forms, but based on the same color scheme. I then paint them and apply gauche onto the surface. Then I started looking at the weekly advertising inserts as extensions of the stores that come into your house. Originally, I started just taking the square area of each product advertised. But then a friend suggested developing an Excel program that would give their size in 360 degrees terms.

Q: Why the change? You had received a good response on the other pieces.

A: The others were interesting, but limited. They were just dots arranged on a page. I wanted something that came out at you and drew you in more.

Q: So you don't alter any of the visual information at all?

A: No. With these, it's a change in relationship in terms of percentage, but it's exactly the same as it's printed. I take the exact color values of, say, a soup can, and then transform through angles, but I didn't want to change what is; somehow that would change its meaning and what it communicates.

Q: They're realist, in a way, aren't they?

A: Well, all abstract art is based on something. I guess there's some that are nonrepresentation abstraction, but I think of them as Cubist: a series of different views of the same object presented at once.

Q: Is there a message in them? On the surface, they are so muted, but what they are derived from suggests something more.

A: They're about what we see a lot of. So much of our life is spent in these kinds of retailers, looking at advertisements, walking through parking lots. I myself live in suburbia and do the same thing, so I think they're commentaries. I don't think they go as far as criticizing.

Q: Given they are about the physical environment, could they be classified as landscapes?

A: Funny, you should ask that. As a young artist, I did landscapes. That was pretty much all I did, so in way, yes, I think they are. Really, they are environments as much as anything.